


He Is Exactly The Poem

by momebie (katilara)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/pseuds/momebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At 22, Ronan hasn't spoken to Adam in two years, but it's his touch he's missed the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Is Exactly The Poem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blindmadness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindmadness/gifts).



> This is a direct follow up to my previous reunion fic, [Homesick](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3777259). [blindmadness](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blindmadness) wanted to see their reunion from Ronan's point of view and it was her birthday, so I couldn't say no. ❤
> 
> The title is taken from the Mary Oliver poem "White Heron Rises Over Blackwater", a relevant piece of which reads:
> 
>  
> 
> _Yet nothing appearing on paper half as bright_  
>  _As the mockingbird’s verbal hilarity_  
>  _In the still unleafed shrub in the churchyard-_  
>  _Or the white heron rising over the swamp and the darkness,_  
>  _His yellow eyes and broad wings wearing_  
>  _The light of the world in the light of the world-_  
>  _Ah yes, I see him._  
>  _He is exactly the poem I wanted to write._

The next morning Ronan is slightly sore, perfectly sated, and pleasantly drowsy in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. The mid-morning light is filtering in through the mostly closed blinds, cutting stark white lines across him and Adam and the dark green sheets. Adam is naked and spread out on his stomach next to Ronan with his hip against Ronan’s side. The only reason Ronan knows for sure that he isn’t dreaming is that he doesn’t know this room. He couldn’t have pulled it from his mind and outfitted it so carefully. He also doesn’t know this Adam. Not really. He’s still too thin, but he’s harder, more exquisite than when Ronan had known him. In counterpoint to that, he smiles more easily. Ronan couldn’t have pulled those smiles out of his mind either. 

Ronan stretches and tries to pry apart the tight pain blooming fresh in his chest over the lost time. He knows it won’t do any good to think about it, there’s nothing he can do to get it back. But maybe, just maybe, he can not fuck this up. Maybe he can work at reverse engineering the future he’d all but given up on. First though, he really needs to piss. 

He rolls out of bed and narrowly avoids planting a foot in the middle of last night’s pizza box. After the initial sex they’d done some lazy frotting and then only ordered food when Adam’s stomach growled. They’d been unable to keep their hands off each other even as they were eating, starved too as they were for each other and for fingers that didn’t have to be taught how to navigate their bodies. Ronan can find Adam’s most sensitive spots blindfolded. He’s done it before and god willing, he’ll do it again. 

There’s a pair of black sweatpants crumpled in a ball on the floor and Ronan pulls them on. They’re a bit tight, but he’s not going far. He opens the door a crack to make sure the coast is clear and then darts across the small living room to the bathroom. 

As he’s washing his hands he studies himself in the small mirror on the medicine cabinet. With the exception of the light bruising Adam’s lips and teeth have left on his right shoulder he looks the same as he always does—sharp, dark, wary. He thinks he should look different, that something about getting what he’s wanted for so long should make him brighter. One of Ronan’s ever-present fears is that he is made like his father, to absorb light, not reflect it. 

When he leaves the bathroom Adam’s roommate is standing in the kitchen. She’s almost as tall as he is, long dark legs resolving into the hem of bright pink cotton shorts. She turns, the word ‘morning’ halfway out of her mouth before she realizes that it’s not Adam caught between her and the living room and the word is lost in a smirk.

“Ah,” she says. “You must be Ronan.” 

Ronan tilts his head, trying to bury his embarrassment in a silent, belligerent question. He is suddenly very aware of just how tight Adam’s sweatpants are around his hips. 

She picks up his question, pushing her unruly black hair out of her face, and says, “Yes he has talked about you before, but also, the walls are as thin as I’m sure he warned you they were.” 

“Warns many people, does he?” Ronan says, finding his voice.

Her smirk smooths into a genuine smile. “Not lately, no. I’m Elise, by the way. Tell him I ate the last of the cereal.” With that she picks up a bowl of what Ronan can only assume is the dregs of a box of frosted mini wheats and then disappears back into her bedroom. Ronan exhales and slips back through the space and into Adam’s room. 

Adam is on his back now, eyes open, arms spread out across the mattress. Ronan barely has the door shut behind him before Adam says, “She always does that.” 

“Eat the last of the cereal or corner your one night stands?”

“Both,” Adam says lightly, not taking the bait. 

Ronan pushes away the pang in his gut at the thought that there are other hands out there that can disassemble Adam as quickly and smoothly as his can. He crawls onto the bed and up the mattress, kissing Adam’s body along the way. He leaves one on Adam’s thigh and trails his nose along the line of soft, light hair leading to Adam’s belly button and leaves one at the top of it. He leaves them up Adam’s breastbone and neck and jaw. 

When their lips finally meet Adam pushes up into Ronan hungrily. The slide of Adam’s tongue against his is so familiar that Ronan is having a hard time remembering that he’s just a visitor here and that he hasn’t been asked to stay. Adam clasps his hands around Ronan’s neck and pulls back, settling onto his pillow. He looks up at Ronan, eyes dark, mouth set in a contemplative moue. 

“Morning.” Adam’s voice is quiet and morning rough.

“Morning,” Ronan replies. He lays down to Adam’s side and buries his face into the crook of his neck, tangling their legs together. He inhales, trying to memorize the smell of the two of them here together so he can dream it later. 

“What are your plans for the day?” Adam says, as if they woke up together every morning and he was in the habit of keeping Ronan’s schedule. 

“I don’t know.” Ronan’s lips are still pressed to Adam’s neck and he kisses him lightly around the words. “How many more times do you think you can fuck me before I have to meet Matthew at one?” Adam’s breath hitches and he squirms, pushing his arm under Ronan’s shoulder. He runs his fingers lightly up and down Ronan’s back and Ronan shivers into the touch. God, he’s missed this. 

“Ronan, that’s not all this is, is it?” He sounds as uncertain as Ronan feels. 

“No, it’s not all I want, but. I didn’t know. I don’t want–” Ronan pulls back so he can look Adam in the eye. He can’t bring himself to say, _I want too much of you. I want you to come home. You are home._

“Yeah.” Adam exhales shakily. “I know I–” He closes his eyes and laughs quietly at himself. “God, you’re gonna give me shit for it, but I don’t want this to be it. I love you, you idiot. And it hurts. And I keep trying to make it not true and nothing I do works. Not girls. Not other boys. I had two god damn years to make it work. And now you’re just here and we’re just us like nothing happened.”

“Not like nothing,” Ronan says. He reaches to grasp at Adam’s free hand where it’s resting on his stomach. “I was still a shit.” 

“We were both shits.” 

And that’s always been true, but Ronan has also always found it so hard to relinquish the blame when things around him fell apart. “Does it hurt right now?” 

Adam tilts his head back and looks up into the light streaming through the blinds. His eyes are a deep, warm blue when the sun hits them, almost but not quite like the chill Ronan sees in his when he looks in the mirror. “No.”

“That’s a start.” 

“It’s a start.” Adam curls onto his side so they’re facing each other. 

“Do you want to come to lunch with Matthew?” Ronan asks, not wanting to give this up.

“I kind of don’t want to let you out of my sight ever again, so yeah. If you don’t think he’d mind.” 

“Matthew loves you. I think sometimes he wishes you were his brother instead of me, of course he won’t mind.” 

Adam rolls his eyes as if to say, ‘that’s not even close to true and we both know it.’ “And you?”

“I don’t wish you were my brother, Parrish, gross,” Ronan says.

Adam doesn’t smile at the joke. 

Ronan knows what Adam wants him to say. Adam wants to hear Ronan say that he loves Adam back. Ronan wants to say it, but the words are caught in his throat. He can think them, has been thinking them as a fierce litany over the last sixteen hours or so, but they won’t come out of his mouth. 

He’s never been able to wrap his lips around the things Adam needs to hear, which had been part of their problem before. Ronan had always hoped it would be enough to wrap his lips around Adam himself and to show where he couldn’t tell. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t. He wants to start over differently and he’s so angry at himself and his inability to take this tiny, first step. 

Finally, he says, “You know how I feel.” 

Adam leans forward and places a soft, close-mouthed kiss to Ronan’s lips. “I’ve known since we were eighteen.” 

“It’s been longer than that,” Ronan says. 

“I know that too.” Adam pulls his arm out from under Ronan and sits up. “We should shower, we’re disgusting.” 

“Go on,” Ronan says. “I’ll be there in a sec.” 

Adam grunts an affirmative and slaps Ronan’s ass lightly as he stands up. He finds another pair of sweatpants in the dirty laundry basket and tosses a clean towel at Ronan before he leaves the room. 

Ronan sits up and looks for his jeans. He leans off the bed to drag them close and pulls his wallet out of the back pocket and opens it. He plucks out a folded bit of thick beige paper and tosses the wallet back onto the floor. When he unfolds the paper his father’s scrawl stares up at him, daring him to do what he’s thinking of doing. 

He hadn’t been looking for Adam yesterday. Not specifically, not anymore than he’s usually searching for Adam’s face in crowds or other cars on the highway. But he had known seeing him was a possibility. DC isn’t that large of a town. So he’d come prepared for any eventuality, ripping the well-worn page right out of his father’s journal just in case. 

It’s a page he’s read maybe a thousand times. He doesn’t have many of his father’s poems memorized, but he knows this one by heart. Possibly because it feels like it could have come from his own heart. Every time he reads it over again he wonders if it’s about his mother or someone else. It doesn’t seem fair, the way it so perfectly encapsulates what he’s feeling. After all, there’s no way his father could have known Ronan would ever feel this way or that all the words he left behind would become the only way he could teach Ronan about it. 

Or maybe he had. Maybe dreamers always feel set apart. It’s a hard lesson, finding out all of your heart-stopping, all-encompassing pain isn’t personal, that it’s a universal experience. 

This poem is short compared to Niall’s other writings. It doesn’t rhyme or wrap itself around some strict form Ronan can’t parse the necessity for. There hadn’t been time for that, as evidenced in how it’s dashed out across the paper sloppily as if written in haste. It is plain in its need. It says only this:

_Sometimes I think it would be simple,_  
_to build a world around myself,_  
_crueler, less wanting,_  
_something sharp that would never let me think_  
_I was deserving of this softness,_  
_this warmth I greedily accept_  
_until I’ve used it up,_  
_until we’re both cold,_  
_until._  
_Sometimes I think I don’t deserve that either,_  
_the absence of this fear,_  
_the absence of this touch,_  
_the absence._  
_So I run toward dreams with teeth,_  
_but promise,_  
_you are home._

_I will always come home._

Ronan folds it up again and tucks it under Adam’s pillow, sure that once they leave he won’t be coming back. Then he gets up to join him in the shower.

. . .

The address Matthew texts him leads to some burger place in a strip mall. When Matthew sees Adam he jumps up with a wide grin on his face. Ronan thinks he’s going to bowl Adam over, but instead he only holds his fist out for Adam to bump before walking around him and wrapping his arms around Ronan’s neck. Ronan hugs him back and resists the urge to pick him up like he’s done since they could both walk.

“I’m glad it worked out,” he whispers. Ronan runs his hands through Matthew’s carefully moussed hair in retaliation and Matthew bats him away. The strands he’s knocked loose start to curl up at the ends. “That took forever, asshole,” he says. 

“Who ya tryin’ to impress?” Ronan asks, hanging his accent thick over the country hills they were raised in. 

“Only everyone, all of the time. You know how it is.” This last part he says to Adam and Adam nods. 

There’s a second where Ronan feels superfluous in both of their lives. They certainly have more in common with each other than he has with either of them. Both of them chasing internships and perfect grades, evenings off and lost sleep. Both of them destined to sit on top of the world, come hell or high water. Ronan doesn’t want to sit on top of the world, he only wants to be king of his own domain, of his father’s domain that he’s making his own. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t join either of them at the top of the world if they asked, without hesitation. 

They take turns ordering at the small window and lunch passes in fits of laughter. There are only a few french fries tossed between Ronan and Matthew and only one choking fit for Adam when Matthew says something surprisingly lewd about Adam and Ronan just as Adam’s taking a sip of his soda. Ronan does not come to Adam’s defence. He only grins at Matthew, proud to have been the one to teach him how to say inappropriate things at the most opportune moments in the first place. 

Outside on the sidewalk Matthew gives Ronan another hug and then pulls Adam in for one too. Ronan doesn’t know what Matthew says to him, but Adam goes a dim pink and nods. He ruffles Matthew’s hair more vigorously than Ronan had before. 

“God you guys,” Matthew huffs fondly. “You deserve each other.” 

Adam looks up at Ronan, a sly smile creeping across his face that says, _we do don’t we?_

“Oh,” Matthew says. “Declan wants to see you about the Barns before you go, if you have time.” 

“Nope, no time. Just gonna spend the rest of this afternoon and on into the evening sucking off Parrish here. I’ve really missed his cock more than I’ve missed Declan. I’ve seen Declan more recently too. I have hit my quota for dicks that aren’t literal dicks.” 

“Gross.” Matthew makes dramatic fake gagging noises. 

Over the retching, Adam shouts, “God, Lynch!” 

Ronan laughs loudly. He can’t help it. Several people turn to look at them. “Tell him I’ll call him.” 

“He’s not going to believe that,” Matthew says.

“He’s not supposed to.” 

Matthew rolls his eyes and ducks down into his car. Adam and Ronan watch him pull away. 

Once he’s disappeared down the street Adam starts down the sidewalk toward Ronan’s car and Ronan falls into step next to him. Their hands brush. “What now?” Adam asks.

Ronan doesn’t know what now. He hasn’t thought this far ahead. “Maybe you could show me some of the sights.” 

Adam smirks at him across the roof of the BMW as Ronan unlocks the car. “Don’t like what you’ve seen so far?” 

“Isn’t there some bullshit line about appreciating what you have more when you go out and see other stuff?”

“You’re a regular scholar, Ronan Lynch,” Adam says. 

“S’all that book learnin’,” Ronan replies, laying into the drawl. He climbs in and slams the car door before pulling up directions to the Lincoln Memorial on his phone.

. . .

They’re walking along the Reflecting Pool towards the WWII Memorial when Adam takes Ronan’s hand and laces their fingers together. Ronan looks at him and then around at everyone else loitering along the grass lawn. Adam’s profile is relaxed and tinted with gold in the dying light. He doesn’t seem to care that they can be seen, so Ronan tries not to care either. It’s probably very different here in a larger city surrounded by tourists they’ll never see again than it had been back home with the eyes of everyone who thought they knew Adam watching him closely.

It’s been so long too, that Ronan thinks by now Adam must be used to the careless romance of holding hands with people while walking in the grass at sunset. If the world had any justice he would be. Adam’s earned careless romance, along with a hundred other easy and good things Ronan can think of. 

Still, it’s a foreign concept to Ronan and his muscles tense with anticipation and the prickling awareness of Adam’s warmth so close to him in the cooling twilight. It’s not like Adam’s his one and only. There have been other boys as he’s tried to fill the empty space beneath his ribs, but he hasn’t exactly been taking long walks with them or asking people about their hopes for the future or anything either. He rather selfishly hasn’t cared about anyone else’s future. Ronan grips Adam’s hand more tightly and Adam leans into him. 

They walk through the concrete arch of the monument and down the outside ramp under the wreaths. Once they reach the lower level Adam tugs Ronan down so they can sit on the low bench circling the courtyard. Adam lets go of Ronan’s hand and possessively grips his knee instead. Ronan puts his arm over Adam’s shoulder and drags him closer, trying to calm his nerves. They watch the fountain sputter and rain down into its pool as the sun slips behind the horizon, leaving a tinge of burnt orange along the edges of the purple night. The lights come on around them. 

“Stop doing that,” Adam says.

“Doing what?” It comes out more churlish than Ronan means it to, but he’s always hated being told what to do and Adam knows that.

“Stop pining. I’m right here.” 

“I’m not pining.” 

Adam raises an eyebrow, unconvinced, and Ronan hates that he ever let Adam get to know him so well. 

“Whatever,” Ronan says. He pushes himself up. “It’s not like it matters. I’m not going to be here tomorrow.” 

He rolls his shoulders as if preparing to punch something. It would be so much easier if he could just punch this feeling. Instead he walks off around the pool listening to the water lap at the edges and splash over itself, trying to make sense of what’s happening in his head. He wants this so much. The last day has been so easy since they’ve gotten over the initial awkwardness in the bookstore and since they’ve let themselves give in to this ache and their need to touch each other again. It feels so good and so _right_. Why can’t he just accept the time he was given? Why can’t he let Adam have the easy, happy life he deserves without having to try and muck it up all the time? 

When he makes it back around to where they’d been sitting Adam is standing in his path at the edge of the water. He has his arms crossed. Ronan stops in front of him and unballs his fists, a minute show of surrender. 

Adam sighs. “I’m willing to try again for real if you are.” 

“I never stopped trying for real,” Ronan says. To his own ears he sounds like a robot, void of the passion that is constantly remaking him. “You made it clear you didn’t need me here, so I left you to it.” 

Adam’s brow furrows and his mouth dips into a grimace. Ronan thinks that they must be hosting twin pains in their chests right now. “You’re an idiot. Of course I need you.” 

“Gansey says you never want to talk about me.” 

Adam lowers his arms. It makes him look like his strings have been cut. “I don’t, but it’s not because I don’t want to know what you’re doing.” 

Ronan closes the space between them and leans his forehead against Adam’s. He drapes his arms over Adam’s shoulders. “Everything about me hurts you. That’s the theme I’m sensing.” 

“All love hurts,” Adam says. “Better the devil you know.” 

“The devil you know wants all of you.”

“Are you here for my soul too, Lynch? I thought it was just my cock you missed. That _is_ what you told Matthew.” 

“I’m here for anything you’ll give me.” 

“As always,” Adam says. 

He runs his hands up and down Ronan’s sides and leans in to kiss him. There are a few catcalls from some teenage boys. Ronan tries to pull his hand away to flip them off, but Adam catches it and holds on to it tight. He barely lets go as they head back to his apartment.

. . .

Elise is sitting in the living room watching television when they get back to Adam’s home. She shouts at them as they duck into Adam’s room. “Some of us have class early in the morning, so keep it down tonight, assholes!”

Ronan feels less rushed than he had the night before, or even this morning. He no longer needs to burn through as much as Adam will give him in a night or two, so they’re both fully clothed when he pushes Adam back onto his bed and kneels over him. They kiss long and languid, hands gently edging under the hems of shirts and dipping into the waistbands of jeans and it’s so much like it had been when they were teenagers. Back when they’d had the rest of their lives ahead of them and were going to take on Glendower and then the world together. 

Maybe now they do and will again. Glendower is no longer a concern, but there’s sure to be other legends they can crack. Ronan’s trying not to get ahead of himself. This is what matters: Adam beneath him, warm skin and lazy tongue and wandering hands. He slides down the bed and pushes Adam’s shirt up, kissing and licking his way up his chest. 

“What’s this?” Adam says. 

Ronan freezes. He remembers suddenly that he hadn’t meant to come back. He’d been counting on the fact that Adam wouldn’t want to put his whole life on pause for a day to amuse his ex-boyfriend and that he’d politely see him off after lunch. He’d been counting on the fact that Adam would be alone when he found it, not stretching cat-like in response to a building heat. Ronan grips Adam’s hips hard and presses his lips to Adam’s stomach, not able to watch as he unfolds the paper and reads what’s printed there. 

“Fuck,” Adam says after a few minutes. He pulls away from Ronan and sits up on the bed, crossing his legs. The offending journal page is flattened across his knee. “This is from...” 

“Yeah.” Ronan sits up on the edge of the mattress and looks at his feet. “It’s his.” 

“I can’t believe you mutilated your father’s journal.” 

“Just one.” Ronan shrugs. “It’s not like he’s going to come back and use it.” 

“You could have just copied it. That’s a thing people do.” 

“I didn’t want you to think I wrote it.” 

“Why not?” Adam asks, and Ronan is very grateful he doesn’t say, ‘I wouldn’t.’

 _It would be a lie_ , Ronan thinks. Instead, he says, “I’d hate to get your hopes up, make you think I’d matured or some shit.” Adam folds the page up and tries to hand it back to Ronan. Ronan shakes his head. “No, I wanted you to have it. So you don’t forget. What you said last night, about home always being a place for me. It’s not. It wasn’t. I mean, I love that place. It means everything to me, except–” 

_You also mean everything to me. I might love you more._

Adam scoots forward on the bed. He stretches his legs out and drapes them around Ronan’s, wraps his arms around Ronan’s chest and pulls him tight against his own. “I know. It was wrong of me before, to try to make you say it when I know. The words aren’t the important part.”

“Sometimes words are the only things you have,” Ronan says. He thinks about his father’s other journals and all the things he still has to learn from him. He thinks about how that’s all he’ll ever have of him. 

“Not for us.” Adam tucks his chin over Ronan’s shoulder. “This poem is a lie. It’s a beautiful lie from a beautiful liar, but you deserve better than this. You deserve more than I can give you. I’m the lucky one.” 

Ronan closes his eyes and lets Adam hold him, allowing his stillness and his quiet to relay all the things he needs Adam to know. He’s confident, finally, that the message will come through loud and clear. _We’re both lucky._


End file.
